News

In a nutshell: The European Commission published the proposals on Digital Omnibus and the European Business Wallet and unveiled the strategy of the European Democracy Shield. The Commission also published its report on the necessity of a domain name information and alert system for the agricultural geographical indications, and launched a call for applications for a Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Internet Standards Deployment. In addition, the European Commission is seeking views from the public on the upcoming reform of EU public procurement, and on further Digital Fitness Check in line with its simplification agenda. The EU institutions reached an agreement on the Insolvency Directive proposal and the Payment Services Regulation. EU Member States signed a declaration for European Digital Sovereignty.

At its 74th General Assembly, CENTR engaged with the European Commission on aligning EU digital policy with global standards and supporting an open, resilient internet ecosystem. CENTR welcomed Xavier Coget, Member of the Cabinet of Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, as keynote speaker at its 74th General Assembly, held in Brussels.

In a nutshell: The European Commission presented its 2026 work programme, the report on simplification, the Apply AI Strategy, a report on submarine cable security, the Cloud Sovereignty Framework, and together with EDPB published joint guidelines on DMA and GDPR. In addition, the European Commission is consulting on the upcoming EU Quantum Act. The European Council shared conclusions on simplification and sovereign digital transition. EU digital ministers agreed on a declaration on online protection of minors. ENISA published the annual Threat Landscape report. ESMA and EBA published the 2026 work programme.

The ICANN community is gearing up for the policy development on DNS abuse

With the latest contractual amendments, adopted in 2024, the ICANN community did not address all DNS abuse mitigation gaps. The DNS Abuse Small Team conducted a review of data to identify potential gaps in DNS abuse mitigation efforts. The team identified 'gaps' in DNS abuse mitigation efforts, noting areas where abuse prevention, reporting, response or obligations could be strengthened. 

CENTR has published a Board statement on the Digital Package (Digital Omnibus).

In a nutshell: The Commission President von der Leyen presented her State of the Union speech. The European Commission published 2025 Strategic Foresight Report, guidelines under the CER Directive and opened a call for evidence on the Digital Omnibus. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on the IGF, and a report on the revision of the public procurement framework. The CJEU dismissed a case against the EU-US data transfer framework, and clarified the scope of personal data in data transfers. The EDPB published guidelines on the interplay between the DSA and the GDPR. The EDPS adopted an opinion on the UN Cybercrime treaty.

The 123rd IETF meeting was held in Madrid, Spain, from 19 to 25 July 2025, featuring over 190 working group sessions, a two-day hackathon, and numerous side events. Pawel Kowalik and Christian Simmen from DENIC attended and have prepared a summary highlighting the key points relevant to CENTR members.

CENTR has released its latest report on the global domain market, highlighting a rebound in growth. The 300 largest TLDs recorded a median annual growth rate of 3.6% (12-month basis), the strongest result since 2022.

CENTR is inviting proposals from providers to operate a domain crawler that will enable analysis of domain properties and usage across participating ccTLDs.

The selected provider will be responsible for:
🔹 Running the crawling process
🔹 Processing and classifying the collected data
🔹 Delivering structured outputs for CENTR and its members

CENTR has published a Board statement on data retention for law enforcement purposes.